Quick pasta dish with just three main ingredients.

Quick pasta dish with just three main ingredients.

You could look at this recipe and think there’s nothing intrepid about this quick pasta. And even more, it’s not a pasta with only three ingredients…there’s olive oil, parmesan, basil…I’ll first explain. Used in small quantities, they’re not ingredients but are actually seasoning.

The three ingredients here are the pasta, pancetta and passata. The parmesan used at the end gives the dish some extra saltines, the basil flavour, the olive oil used only to start the pancetta frying. And the dish is intrepid, it only uses three ingredients, but making these three ingredients work together is the key. And they do.

Also, the time it takes to make this dish, is no longer than the time you need to boil the pasta. Then everything comes together.

Put the pasta to boil in a large enough pan, with about 1 liter of water, add a pinch of salt.

Separately in a frying pan, get the olive oil hot, fry the pancetta until nice and crisp, take them out and dry the excess oil. Drain any extra oil from the pan, leaving just a touch, and add the passata, salt and pepper, mix well and bring to a gentle simmer. Should the sauce be too think dilute with a spoon or two of pasta water.

Drain the pasta, mix well with the sauce, and serve topped with bacon, grated parmesan and basil leaves on top, sprinkle with a dash of olive oil. Is it a quick pasta dish? It is.